This sounds like a challenge.

If non military spending is brought under even a semblance of discipline post-katrina and otherwise, it really isn’t all that hard to see continued economic growth hand in hand with continued high expenditures on international security. The SF model though is not only a lighter footprint than waiting for failed states to demand all out war, it is also far cheaper. As with many things, a healthy expenditure on prevention is much less expensive than mopping up the mess after years of negligence.

On Iraq, one positive to the high price of oil is a large increase in the amount of money going towards reconstruction there. Pre-war they were expecting to be exporting more oil than they have turned out to be able to post-war. But with the price of oil 3 times what they expected it to be, the money flow will be one of the biggest shapers of events in the post constitution-writing, post basic government-forming period. The real concern over the longer view is the entrenched culture of corruption after decades of Ba’athist rule, not the insurgency. If reliable civil institutions can take strong root, the cost of this first step to a transformation of the middle east may begin to look like a bargain.

What I would like to hear from those who are so loudly critical of short term expenditures on military operations and post-disaster reconstruction efforts, is a full recognition that our budget problems are structural, not circumstantial. If you are serious and sincere about fiscal sanity, advocate Gingrich style Medicare/Medicaid reform, Social Security reform including personal retirement accounts, the end of farm subsidies, etc. Sure we can find many ways in which our military could use it’s funding better, but if we are going to get into fiscal policy let’s start with areas of the federal budget where hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved without shortchanging national and international security — simply by changing the old New Deal into a much better deal.

“Government policies are routinely subjected to rigorous cost analysis. Yet one of today’s most controversial and expensive policies – the ongoing war in Iraq – has not been. . . We estimate . . .costs through 2015 could be $604 billion to the US, $95 billion to coalition partners, and $306 billion to Iraq, suggesting a global total . . . of about $1 trillion.”

In years gone by, we would never have seen the likes of Charmaine Neville covering for those who fired on Army helicopters. In the interview she sounded as though she’d been coached by an attorney, worried of what she might encounter in front of a potential grand jury.

Most of all, the whole country from the smallest town to the most populous state needs to breathe deeply and finally get it through its thick skull that interdependence is the new reality, not an option. Until then, the rest of the gov’t and the country will only fall further behind the SF’s stellar example.

Actually, being almost finished with BFA, I’d say that Dr. Barnett would agree with that phenomenon.

A new type of American warrior is right. It’s going to take more than that though. As Kaplan touches on many times later in the book, the home front and the aristocracy mentality in key upper positions of the old military can doom the delicate work at the frontier. As he also shows when glancing at the moves by China and others, spreading presense and favorable conditions on the ground can be done in ways other than through top-notch small military teams. Education and the war of ideas at home, commerce and demographics at the frontiers, all fall far short of the amazing work American SF are doing around the world. What do you think it will take for that to change? What do you think it will take for America and Americans at home to more closely resemble the always-on strength, courage, intelligence, modesty, and determination of those profiled by Kaplan in Imperial Grunts?